Service charge, water bills, security, garbage and more

As a property manager, you need to generate tenant utility bills accurately and invoice renters on time, all the time. Property management often includes charging rent as well as utility bills to tenants. You need to bill tenants, collect payments and make correct reports and this has to be done properly, on time, every time.

Property management professionals need a reliable rental accounting software for managing rental properties that has easy yet reliable methods to manage billing and monitor payments. Many property managers use Kodisher because it is a dependable tool for handling utility bills to tenants like service charge, water bills, electricity bills, garbage and more.

Rent collections and utility bills

Kodisher helps you manage rent payments as well as all other bills that are billed to the tenants; easily and efficiently. Kodisher is built from the ground to be robust in order to handle your rental property management billing and utility bills payment configurations. This means that you can configure it to deliver your own unique processes. We have prepared a tutorial below to assist you make the most out of Kodisher tenant rent and utility billing abilities.

For this we are going to use examples to make it as easy as possible. Kodisher understands that there are two types of bills to tenants:

Fixed recurring bills

Consumption based bills/charges

Say you have an apartment block “Kodisher Highrise” that has unit “A1” that is leased to “Tenant No. 1”.

Rent for the current month (With the option to bill partially for the current month if it is already in progress)

Rent deposit

Other fixed monthly bills such as service charge, garbage and security

Once these are added, the rent and utilities will be billed automatically at the beginning of every month (payment cycle). There is the option to have a monthly or quarterly payment billing cycle.

However, you will need to manually import usage based bills that vary in the course of the month e.g water billed on consumption. There are two ways to do this. You can add bills one by one or in bulk.

Add Utility bills, one by one

The simple way. If you just want to add a few bills it is easiest to open the tenant account and add a bill.

Then, open the tenant account. (Go to “Tenant Accounts” > “Active leases” and then Click on the name of the tenant you want to bill.)

On the tenant account click on “Add Invoice”

Add the payment type, description, amount, due date and the other fields as appropriate

Click “save”

The bill will be added to the tenant account

Bulk import tenant utility bills

The bulk import way. If you just want to add bills for many tenants/residents, Kodisher has a special tool specifically for doing that

To do this, first go to the billing import page (Go to “Tenant Accounts” > “Bills” > “Import Bills” and then Click on the type of bill you want to import.)

For this example we use the water bill ~ so click on it

It will open a page like this

Click on the download template for the property you want to bill ~ an excel sheet is downloaded that has columns for tenant details and consumption details

—- the next instructions happen on your computer—-

You need to update this excel sheet with details on previous readings, current readings, rate you change and use a formula to calculate the bill.

You also need to include the reading date in the format MM/DD/YY

Save the excel document

—- now go back to Kodisher billing page—-

Click “Choose file” and select the excel file you just edited

Click “Upload”

Kodisher will verify the data and present it to you for confirmation

Once you are happy with it click “Confirm” and the bills will be added to the tenant accounts

Once your tenants are billed, the new bills show up on their accounts. You can opt to send the bills or have Kodisher to that for you through the tenant’s email address. Bills are settled as payments are recorded. When tenants pay via Mpesa, accounts are settled automatically.

Water meter readings

IF, you take water meter readings, you can also print out the downloaded utility bill template and use it to take readings on your phone. Then use upload the document to bill the tenants. The tenant billing template has a formula that can include readings for wastewater and sewer services. The same can be done for electricity utility bills for landlords who provide the service to their renters. This also works perfectly in co-owned properties that are run by management committees.

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About Us

Kodisher is a Kenyan property management system that helps property owners and letting agents to bring out the full potential of their rental properties. Kodisher is available now, online and is easy to use, affordable and is integrated with mobile money payment methods.